Chapter Text
Blood splattered across the car's interior like crimson paint, while anguished screams pierced the night air from every direction on the bridge. A blonde young boy with orange eyes, Pocket, trembled uncontrollably as his father desperately maneuvered through the chaotic crowd of terrified people, the engine roaring with urgency.
"Hold on tight!"
Cameron shouted over the cacophony, his knuckles white against the steering wheel. Pocket's small fingers clutched desperately at the leather seats, his usual car seat abandoned moments earlier when his mother had granted him permission to retrieve his beloved plush toy from the floor. The simple act of kindness had seemed so innocent then—nobody could have anticipated the nightmare that would unfold.
The vehicle lurched violently to the left, and Pocket's head struck the car door with a sickening thud. A prolonged, high-pitched ringing filled his ears, drowning out the world around him. The five-year-old whimpered, tears streaming down his cheeks as gentle hands pulled him upright and enveloped him in a protective embrace.
Through blurred vision, Pocket glimpsed a figure in black—jumpsuit stark against the darkness, face concealed behind a menacing mask that revealed only cold, calculating eyes.
The assailant had somehow managed to leap onto the car's hood, his movements predatory and deliberate. As the masked figure raised something sharp toward the windshield, Pocket's mother released a blood-curdling scream that would haunt the child's subconscious.
Cameron's reflexes kicked in with paternal ferocity. The car spun violently, centrifugal force flinging the attacker from the hood like a discarded rag doll. The sudden maneuver sent everyone inside careening against the windows, but they were momentarily safe.
Aliana, Pocket's older sister with hair the color of morning sky, grasped his tiny hand with trembling fingers. She is scared herself but she cares more for her brother’s safety.
"Everything will be okay," she whispered, though her voice quavered with uncertainty. At five years old, Pocket possessed an intuitive understanding that adults' promises sometimes crumbled like sandcastles. The fear in Aliana's eyes told him everything her words tried to hide.
Those reassuring words would become the final memory Pocket would retain of his sister's voice—a cruel irony that would torment him in the years to come.
The windshield exploded in a shower of glittering fragments as something—a bullet, perhaps—tore through the glass. Cameron's sharp intake of breath transformed into a gurgling gasp as the projectile pierced his chest, crimson blooming across his shirt like a macabre flower.
"Cameron! Cameron, please stay with me!" His mother's voice reached a pitch that made Pocket's ears hurt. The five-year-old didn't understand the finality in her tone, but he recognized the raw terror that transformed her familiar voice into something alien and frightening. This urges him to cover his ears, tight and his fingers curled in to block all angles.
Another scream erupted from his mother's direction, but this one was different—shorter, more abrupt, followed by an eerie silence that felt wrong in ways Pocket couldn't articulate. Aliana's hand immediately covered his mouth, her palm warm and slightly damp with perspiration. Pocket shivered in fear with wide eyes, contemplating the events that happened and the screams of terror from his parents.
"We can't let them know we're in here," she breathed against his ear, her voice barely audible above the chaos outside. She laid down and multiple running footsteps ran past them. When it feels a bit safer, Aliana slowly looks up and through the window.
Pocket is too overwhelmed by the intensity of this accident, as he clung to his sister's shirt as if it were a lifeline. The fabric felt soft and familiar, a small comfort in an incomprehensible situation.
With careful movements, Aliana guided Pocket down onto the car floor and draped two blankets over his small form. The space felt cramped and suffocating, but her finger pressed against her lips in the universal gesture for silence. Even at five, Pocket understood the gravity of that simple signal.
When Aliana slipped out of the car, Pocket's heart hammered against his ribs. He wanted to call out, to beg her not to leave him alone, but fear had stolen his voice. The blankets felt simultaneously protective and imprisoning, creating a cocoon of false security around his trembling form.
The sound of gunshots cracked through the night air like deadly fireworks. Pocket squeezed his eyes shut and tried to imagine he was playing hide-and-seek with his sister, that any moment she would lift the blankets and declare him the winner. But the acrid smell of smoke and something else— something told him this wasn't a game.
Heavy footsteps approached with methodical precision, each boot fall echoing like a countdown to discovery. Pocket's breathing became shallow, barely disturbing the fabric above him. When the harsh beam of a flashlight swept over his hiding place, he felt its heat penetrate the thin blankets, and he was certain the light would somehow expose him.
Minutes stretched into eternity. The five-year-old's body ached from being motionless, his muscles cramping from the unnatural stillness. Just as he felt tears threatening to spill over, the oppressive heat of the flashlight disappeared, replaced by the cool night air filtering through the car's broken windows.
Believing the danger had passed, Pocket cautiously emerged from his makeshift shelter. The car had been damaged in ways he didn't understand—windows spider-webbed with cracks, seats torn and bloodstained. As he moved toward the car door, the vehicle's unstable position betrayed him. The impact from earlier had left the car precariously balanced, and his small movement was enough to shift its center of gravity.
Pocket tumbled forward, his head colliding with the metal buckle of a seatbelt with devastating force. Pain exploded through his skull like white lightning, and for a moment, the world tilted at impossible angles. Through his blurred vision, he caught a glimpse of the front seat in the rear window.
His father's body lay motionless, eyes staring at nothing, a dark stain spreading across his chest. The image on the car mirror seared itself into Pocket's memory before his consciousness mercifully fled, his small body crumpling as shock and trauma overwhelmed his mind.
The last coherent thought that flickered through his awareness was a whisper of guilt that echoed in his mind: It's all my fault.
Outside the wreckage, Aliana searched frantically for help, her movements erratic with desperation. When one of the masked figures spotted her, she ran with the speed of pure terror, her feet barely touching the ground. She managed to evade capture, but in her panicked flight, she collided with a parked Ferrari, the impact sending her head against the vehicle's door with a sickening crack.
Blood flowed freely from the gash on her scalp, painting crimson trails down her face. The injury, combined with the psychological trauma of witnessing her family's destruction, proved too much for her young mind to bear. She collapsed beside the luxury car, consciousness abandoning her as her body could no longer cope with the overwhelming cascade of horror and grief.
Both siblings lay unconscious in different locations, their minds already beginning the process of protective forgetting that would ultimately separate them more than death itself.
The distant wail of sirens finally pierced the night, growing stronger as emergency vehicles from two different states converged on the scene. The interstate attack had been so severe that resources from multiple jurisdictions were required to handle the casualties. Police officers worked systematically to apprehend the perpetrators, while paramedics triaged the wounded with practiced efficiency.
The most critically injured victims were rushed to the nearest trauma center, while those with a better chance of survival were transported to more distant hospitals. Families gathered in waiting rooms across the region, their faces etched with worry and disbelief as they processed the randomness of the violence that had torn their loved ones away.
Some would reunite with their relatives. Others would face the devastating finality of loss. But perhaps most tragically, some would survive only to discover that survival itself could be its own form of death.
"The child has sustained severe traumatic brain injury," the doctor explained to the imposing figure standing outside Pocket's hospital room. "The impact has caused significant memory impairment—what we call retrograde amnesia. He cannot recall his parents, the incident, or much of his life before the trauma."
Inside the sterile room, Pocket sat with his knees drawn to his chest, his small arms wrapped around his legs as he tried to make sense of the unfamiliar environment. The walls were too white, the smells too sharp and chemical. Everything felt foreign and threatening, as if he'd awakened in an alien world.
The large man entered the room with careful steps, his massive frame somehow gentle as he approached the bed. "Hello, Andrey," he said softly, using the formal name that felt strange and distant to Pocket's ears. "I'm your Uncle. Are you alright?”
The nurse hovering nearby radiated anxiety so palpable that even a traumatized five-year-old could sense it. Her hands fluttered nervously as she adjusted equipment that didn't need adjusting, her eyes darting between the man and the child with obvious concern.
"What happened to me?" Pocket asked, his voice barely above a whisper. The question had been circling in his mind like a trapped bird, desperate for escape but finding none. "Why can't I remember things? Why does everything feel... empty?"
Uncle Marcus settled carefully on the edge of the hospital bed, his weight causing the mattress to dip slightly. "Your parents were in a very serious car accident," he said, his voice heavy with a grief that Pocket couldn't fully comprehend. "They... they didn't survive."
The words hit Pocket like a physical blow, even though he couldn't attach faces or voices to the concept of "parents. A crushing weight settled in his chest, a grief for people he couldn't remember loving, for a life he couldn't recall living.
"I…I don’t… know who…?," Pocket whispered, his small hands grabbing his head as if he could physically force the memories to return. He could remember their voices, but their faces and appearances are so blurry. "I don’t remember… what they look like.”
More silent voices filled inside his small mind.
Why can't I remember?
Who’s missing?
The five-year-old's voice cracked with frustration and fear. He can’t help but feel that he is forgetting one of the most important people to him in the whole world. The gaps in his memory felt like wounds that wouldn't heal, constantly reminding him of something precious that had been stolen away.
His uncle reached out with surprising gentleness, his large hand settling on Pocket's shoulder. "There's nothing wrong with you," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Sometimes, when something very scary happens, our minds protect us by hiding the memories until we're strong enough to handle them. You're not broken—you're healing."
"Is it only my mom and dad?," Pocket said, his young voice heavy with a confusion that would follow him for years.
"There is…” There is a girl her face is a blur but mostly her eyes, her eyes are blurred out. She has a nice smile. “ Someone else…" He sobbed into his hands.
His words hung in the air like a lament, unanswered and unanswerable. Uncle pulled the child into a careful embrace, his own eyes glistening with unshed tears for the nephew who had lost not just his family, but himself.
"I'll help you remember what you can," he promised, though they both sensed the inadequacy of the words. "And I'll help you build new memories, good ones. You're not alone, Andrey."
Pocket nodded against his uncle's chest, finding comfort in the steady rhythm of the man's heartbeat. Yet even as he accepted this new reality, a part of him yearns to look for the missing pieces of his life.
In another hospital across the city, a similar scene unfolded. Aliana awakened to find her own memories fractured and incomplete, her aunt's familiar face the only anchor in a sea of confusion. The siblings, separated by distance and amnesia, would grow up to not know each other. However, fate has other plans….
The tragedy was complete not just in what they had lost, but in what they had forgotten they ever possessed. Two children who had once been each other's world now existed in parallel universes, connected by invisible threads of shared trauma that neither could remember or understand.
Years later, both ended up in Sacred Hearts Primary school, Aliana already in her last year and Pocket in his 4th year.
No one knows when fate will connect them again.